Watershed Activist Shares Views on Long-Term Work of Environmental Stewardship

“I like biologists. They do cool things. They go to cool places, and I’ll hang around them. I’ll fix their stuff. I’ll carry their stuff. I’m a good pack animal.” 

This is how David Brooks, a longtime electrical engineer who was born and raised in Detroit and professes to having disliked his high school biology teacher, ended up doing so much biology in his lifetime. 

And extra hands on deck couldn’t have come at a better time. In his many years working alongside scientists, Brooks has racked up an impressive 20 Earthwatch projects in his resume, doing everything from banding birds, taking blood samples from eagle chicks, and trapping flying squirrels from places as far afield as Costa Rica and Prince of Wales Island to locales as local as our very own Great Lakes watershed.